Digital to Acoustic

I have just purchased a piano—ridiculous on so many counts. One, I don’t play very well at all. Two, I have a perfectly acceptable digital piano. Three, I am generally in the process of divesting myself of goods, not accumulating them. Four, I don’t really have a great place to put it. Five, unlike the digital piano it will require regular tuning. I could go on, but you get the gist of it. But I’ve got a good price on a used acoustic piano from the conservatory where I’ve been taking lessons, and I’m gonna buy it, ridiculous or not. It’s an Eterna, which has a kind of heavenly sound to it—pun intended—and is Yamaha’s entry level label.

So why, you are asking yourself, is this half-hearted musician in her declining years buying a piano? I’m trying to figure that out myself. I guess it’s just because I want to. My inner Puritan struggles with whether that’s a good enough reason. 

Oh wait, you say. Last we heard, you were struggling with the violin.

Well, yes. I haven’t been keeping you up to date on that mad venture—and for good reason. I finally concluded—as the skeptical among you always knew—that picking up the violin in my mid-70s was not very realistic. Believe me, it was a wise decision to put the violin aside and return to the piano, which I have played at for years, but never played well. Unlike with the violin, though, when I hit an f-sharp, I know it will be an f-sharp. When I admitted defeat and tucked the violin into a closet last winter, I decided to sign up for piano lessons, and I vowed to take it seriously. (Just to prove how serious I am about this, I have downloaded a metronome app on my phone.) I began by working on pieces in the Grade 6 Royal Conservatory of Music book, because that’s where I thought I should be. I have now graduated to Grade 4. Yes, you read that right. But I am pressing on.

Is the digital piano with the slightly abbreviated keyboard not good enough for me? Oh, I’m sure it is. I have no illusions about my likely progress. My teacher does occasionally point out that a digital piano is not up to things like nuanced pedalling and finer points of dynamics. The piano question aside, it’s not clear I am either. I’m not even quite sure what “I want you to dig into the keys more” means, but apparently that’s not possible on my Roland and it will be on my new piano. I’ll let you know.

The truth is, I’ve always felt the digital piano was a half-measure. I purchased it after selling my old upright to make space in the house when it was considerably more crowded than it is now. During most of those years, I’ve hardly played it. Now that I’ve decided to throw myself into this project, I want to return to the real deal.

There is still the question of where to put it. In some ways, I rattle around in this house. But when I look for five feet of wall space uninterrupted by doors or windows, I come up short. That was one advantage of the not-quite-full-sized Roland. I think I might let the new one take over the little room that used to be Jack’s study. It would be a cozy place to spend an hour or so a day. I think he’d approve. And if I stick to it, maybe—some day—I’ll get back to Grade 6. 

The movers say they will bring it to me on October 19.